Opinion

Ian Guider: We Irish pay lip service to oversight but in truth do very little or nothing about it

Ireland already has plenty of quangos either unable or unwilling to regulate their sectors and get consumers better value. Will the CCPC’s new powers be any different?

‘It is just as well the CCPC has its new powers because a day later the National Competitive Council urged it to actually use them’

The Competition & Consumer Protection Commission last week received the biggest overhaul of its mandate in more than two decades, with enhanced powers granted to it to enforce competition laws in this country, we were led to believe.

New sweeping powers will allow it to directly impose fines of €10 million and carry out covert surveillance of those it suspects of being involved in illegal cartel behaviour, they told us.

All very impressive. It was ...